Build Your Business with these 5 Habits

Written on 22 January 2018.

Welcome to 2018! A whole year ahead, to plan, implement, and prosper. I hope you had a great break, and were able to gain a little perspective on your business, while spending time with your family and friends. Looking ahead to the year, it’s time to look at ways you can build your business into a better, stronger, and bigger, machine this year. On this week’s The Money Show with Bruce Whitfield, we uncovered 5 key habits that’ll help you build your business in 2018:

Remind yourself of your purpose and passion

When you’re busy being busy, you’re more likely to drag last year’s habits into a whole new year. Before you get busy with the year’s work, remind yourself why you do what you do. Take a moment to remember what inspired you to start and what future you want to create through the business that you build. Your energy to keep building and progressing comes from that future, so take a moment to remember why you do what you do. That is the source of passion.

But, passion isn’t enough though; purpose matters too. Being clear on your purpose for the year, and for your business, will help you to keep moving forward. What is your purpose? It’s not building products and services – those are operational activities within your business. Your purpose is building an Asset of Value! Understand what your Asset of Value looks like; how you want it to grow; how to measure it, and don’t lose sight of that purpose throughout the year ahead. Especially when things get rough and the politics of our country creates noise in your mind.

Do the right thing

As a country, we’re witnessing renewed efforts being made to root out corruption. 2018 is going to see a series of ‘Witch hunts’ as people, organisations and others strive to root out corruption and bad behavior in corporate and political life. The ‘witches’ will be burnt at the stakes of social media and we have already seen this happen to McKinsey, KPMG, Eskom, Trillian, Steinhoff to name a few.

Don’t allow yourself to get distracted by the news headlines. Rather, look at your own business and make sure you’re operating in compliance with all relevant regulations, legislation and best practices. Build your business by implementing systems that help you stay compliant, and ensuring that every member of your team commits to doing the right thing. Set the example within your business, and don’t tolerate any activity that exposes your business to risky circumstances. Compliance to regulations and legislation will be a competitive advantage!

Your technology roadmap

Trying to build your business without a technology roadmap and strategy is futile. Without a technology roadmap and strategy, your business will not be able to respond as quickly as it should to environmental changes, or shifts in customer needs. As technology becomes cheaper, more familiar and more easily accessible, your customers’ demands will increase exponentially. Using technology to scale, grow, and build your business is an imperative. Technology-enabled businesses are better equipped to respond to new opportunities, and every opportunity is ripe for the picking.

People and momentum

You can have the best systems, and be fully technology-enabled, but you can’t build your business without people. Hiring the right people, and equipping them for the role they need to play within your business can be tedious. This process can be significantly shortened by implementing robust systems that manage the staff onboarding process. Building effective systems will help you to track and trace problems, successes, and provide metric-based feedback on staff performance. Effective systems don’t just help you build your business – they help build and empower your people too. Empowering your team helps to create a sense of stability within it, and that helps you to build momentum within your business.

Think problems, not products nor customers

Stop focusing on your products, services, and customers. Remind yourself of the problems you want to solve, and set out to solve those problems. Know what problems you set out to solve, and learn what it’ll cost your customers to not have those problems solved. By adopting the problem-solving mindset, you’ll build your business in a way that remains relevant to your customers, and adaptable to changing circumstances.